Author: John English

It’s Election Day on this fine November 6, 2018. We’ll be updating this live blog throughout the day. [7:35pm] – Fox News called the House for the Democrats. I anticipate we’ll see a reverse of the Gingrich House of the 90s. Investigation after investigation after investigation. – Beau Sorensen [7:20pm] – I think the Senate results are showing that the Kavanaugh hearings backfired on Democrats and that from an electoral standpoint Republicans were right to push him through. It told Republicans they needed to get out and keep the Senate in GOP…

In 2016, way too many people ran for the Republican presidential ticket. It allowed a lifelong Democrat who turned into a birther a handful of years ago to win the nomination. So, based on very little, here’s where I see the candidates for president in power rankings for the 2020 Democratic presidential primary field. 1. KAMALA HARRIS – The junior senator from California is a star on the left. She’s pugnacious, which helps in picturing her debating Trump, and she checks all the identity politics boxes. She might be seen…

Some takeaways from a very difficult week in Washington DC yesterday regarding Dr. Christine Blasley-Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh. 1. There has never been a greater argument for getting rid of the 17th Amendment than what we’ve seen the past few weeks. The body of 100 Senators is supposed to be a legislative body. It is now a body of about 20 who wants to do the people’s business and 80 people who see themselves as future presidents who need to dance for their base of donors. The majority of…

Omarosa Manigault Newman, bearing a name that sounds concocted by a pretentious author, started in the spotlight by being the most memorable contestant from Season 1 of NBC’s The Apprentice. She returned for a couple more seasons and has done work here and there for Donald Trump ever since. After his shock election victory, Trump kept Omarosa, giving her a trusted position in the West Wing. She was unceremoniously dismissed last year, and one of her first gigs was appearing on another reality show (Celebrity Big Brother). Master of making…

The run-up to this convention was the nastiest I’ve ever seen it, and it had nothing to do with the candidates. It was all about the proposals of amendments. The proposals to cut back on the control of the State Central Committee, and the proposals to cut back on the control of the Chair. Keep Our Caucus, the caucus-only pro-delegate anti-SB54 group, morphed into Keep My Voice, more of a caucus-only pro-SCC anti-Rob Anderson group. There was even a flyer attacking the Chair a few days before the convention. I’ve…

I’ve read excerpts of Michael Wolff’s Fire & Fury, and I’ve seen the reactions from a bunch of people. My impression of it boils down to this. I feel like I could spend a year looking at what happened in the news each day, then pretend I was on a White House couch at the time, and I could write something very similar to what he wrote. I could reinvent conversations, share what people’s thought bubbles were and the like. Wolff is known for recreating events in this manner. Fire…

Hey, there’s never enough of these year-in-review posts, right? Here’s a look at the winners & losers in politics in 2017. ==NATIONAL== WINNER: Donald Trump – He didn’t get impeached, his fans are still as loyal as ever, and he actually accomplished a lot of what he wanted to. He helped get a big tax deal through that will add an estimated billion dollars to his net worth, he nominated a Supreme Court justice that conservatives will applaud for the next 25 years, and he got rid of a lot…

1. Franken Out, But Wait There’s Moore Sen. Al Franken gave a non-apology speech announcing that he would be resigning in the coming weeks due to the increasing amount of sexual misconduct allegations against him. He made sure to point out that he felt some of them were not true, and he used it as an exclamation point in a calculated political move that was obvious since Wednesday. Allow some Democratic female senators to call for his resignation. Then some male ones join in. And then Franken does the honorable…

Until now, we haven’t seen much effect from SB54, the bill that allows candidate to still get on a primary ballot even if they don’t make it in the top two at the convention. This is now only the second GOP primary in Utah where a signature gatherer defeated at convention beat the top vote-getter, and we will feel the repercussions for a while. This was a strange one, in that Jason Chaffetz resigned in the middle of his term, and Gov. Herbert butted heads with then Utah GOP-chair James…

Tea Party favorite Chris Herrod pulled off the improbable and left the GOP special convention to be the official Republican nominee for Utah’s 3rd district (the fightin’ 3rd!) However due to SB54 and some signature-gathering there will be a Republican primary where Provo Mayor John Curtis and Danny’s son Tanner Ainge will also be on the ballot. Going into the convention I thought it was going to be between Deidre Henderson and Margaret Dayton. Henderson had been a slight favorite from the last poll I saw, and Dayton’s campaign had…